Yep. I did the higher handlebar thing for a couple years about a decade ago, because I had little experience of my own and figured Grant Petersen and Sheldon Brown were surely the only experts worth listening to. I was kind of disappointed that I never felt quite as comfy on and not quite as happy with the handling of my new LHT as I had on my old Miyata 210. I finally put it together after two and a half years or so, only after I'd started road riding and racing. I flipped the stem over on the LHT and dropped a spacer or two, and it was like night and day. The bike felt great after that. Today, if I were going to throw some bags on one of my bikes and go for a long tour, I wouldn't want the bars as low as I have them on my road bike, but the 2-3 inches of drop I have on my cyclocross bikes would be perfect. These days when I see anyone say "for more comfort, you need higher bars," like it's an unalterable maxim, I pretty much just . It really depends. That's undoubtedly true for some people, but you might be surprised; I know at least one person with a bad back who runs a lot of drop partly because that's what keeps his spine at a comfortable alignment.

As for the B-17, I see upthread someone saying it was "designed" to be at or slightly above bar level. Is that so? I doubt it, simply because it's such an old design and the high drop bar is a recent trend (last 15-20 years) pretty much entirely inspired by Petersen and others of his persuasion. It might be optimal relatively close to handlebar level, but there's room to fiddle and I really don't know if that was the intent of the designer way back when.